wait, whose silence was broken only by the creaking of a set of harness, or the impatient pawing of a horse’s hoof. The blurred voices of the Bois died away in the distance.
All Paris was there, in spite of the lateness of the season: the Duchesse de Sternich, in a chariot; Mme. de Lauwerens, in a smart victoria and pair; the Baronne de Meinhold, in an enchanting light-brown cab; the Comtesse Vanska, with her piebald ponies; Mme. Daste, with her famous black steppers; Mme. de Guende and Mme. Teissière in a brougham; little Sylvia in a dark-blue landau. And then there was Don Carlos, in mourning, with his solemn, old-fashioned liveries; and Selim Pasha, with his fez and without his tutor; the Duchesse de Rozan, in a miniature brougham, with her powdered livery; the Comte de Chibray, in a dogcart; Mr. Simpson, driving his perfectly-appointed drag; and the whole American colony. Then, finally, two Academicians in a hired cab.
The front carriages were released, and one by one the whole line began to move slowly on. It resembled an awakening. A thousand lively coruscations sprang up, quick flashes played among the wheels, sparks flew from the horses’ harness. On the ground, on the trees, were broad reflections of trotting glass. This glitter of wheels and harness, this blaze of varnished panels glowing with the red gleam of the setting sun, the bright notes of colour cast by the dazzling liveries perched up full against the sky, and by the rich costumes projecting beyond the carriage-doors, were carried along amid a hollow, sustained rumbling sound, timed by the trot of the horses. And the procession went on, with the same noise, the same effects of light, unceasingly and with one impulse, as though the foremost carriages were dragging all the others behind them.
Renée yielded to the first slight jolt of the calash, and lowering her eyeglass, threw herself back on the cushions. Shivering, she drew towards her a corner of the bearskin that filled the body of the carriage as with a sheet of silky snow, and plunged her gloved hands into the long, soft, curly hair. The wind began to blow from the North. The warm October day, which had given the Bois an aftermath of spring and brought the great ladies out in open carriages, threatened to end in a bitterly cold evening.
For a moment Renée remained huddled in the warmth of her corner, giving way to the pleasurable lullaby of wheels turning before her. Then, raising her head towards Maxime, whose eyes were calmly undressing the women spread out in the adjacent broughams and landaus:
“Tell me,” she said, “do you really think that Laure d’Aurigny handsome? How you sang her praises the other day, when they were discussing the sale of her diamonds!… By the way, did you not see the necklace and the aigrette your father bought me at the sale?”
“Yes, he does things well,” said Maxime, without answering, laughing mischievously. “He finds means to pay Laure’s debts and to give diamonds to his wife.”
Renée made a slight movement with her shoulders.
“Wretch!” she murmured, with a smile.
But Maxime was leaning forward, following with his gaze a lady whose green dress interested him. Renée had thrown back her head, and with half-closed eyes glanced listlessly at the two sides of the avenue, seeing nothing. On the right, copses and low-cut plantations with reddened leaves and slender branches passed slowly by; at intervals, on the track reserved for riders, slim-waisted gentlemen galloped past, their steeds raising little clouds of fine dust behind them. On the left, at the foot of the narrow grassplots that run down intersected by flowerbeds and shrubs, the lake, clear as crystal, without a ripple, lay as though neatly trimmed along its edges by the gardeners’ spades; and on the further side of this translucent mirror, the two islands, with between them the gray bar formed by the connecting bridge, displayed their smiling slopes and the theatrical outlines of fir-trees and evergreens, whose black foliage, resembling the fringe of curtains cunningly draped along the edge of the horizon, was reflected in the water. This scrap of nature, that seemed like a newly-painted piece of scenery, lay bathed in a faint shadow, in a pale blue vapour which succeeded in lending to the background an exquisite charm, an air of entrancing artificiality. On the other bank, the Châlet des Îles, as though newly varnished, shone like an unused toy; and the paths of yellow sand, the narrow garden walks that wind among the lawns and run along the lake, edged with iron hoops in imitation of rustic woodwork, stood out more curiously, in this last hour of daylight, against the softened green of grass and water.
Accustomed to the ingenious charms of this perspective, Renée, once more yielding to her languor, had lowered her eyelids altogether, and looked only at her slender fingers twisting the long hairs of the bearskin. But there came a jolt in the even trot of the line of carriages. And, raising her head, she nodded to two ladies lolling languidly, amorously, side by side, in a chariot which was nosily leaving the road that skirts the lake, in order to go down one of the side avenues. The Marquise d’Espanet, whose husband, lately an aide-de-camp to the Emperor, had just created a great scandal by allying himself with the discontented members of the old nobility, was one of the most prominent leaders of society of the Second Empire; her companion, Mme. Haffner, was the wife of a celebrated manufacturer of Colmar, a millionaire twenty times over, whom the Empire was transforming into a politician. Renée, a schoolfellow of the two inseparables, as people nicknamed them with a knowing air, called them by their Christian names, Adeline and Suzanne.
As, after smiling to them, she was about to sink afresh into her corner, a laugh from Maxime made her turn round.
“No, really, I feel too sad: don’t laugh, I mean what I say,” she said, seeing that the young man was watching her ironically, making merry over her huddled attitude.
Maxime put on a comedy voice:
“How unhappy we are: how jealous!”
She seemed quite amazed.
“I!” she said. “Jealous of what?”
And then added, with a pout of contempt, as though remembering:
“Ah, to be sure, that fat Laure! I had not given her a thought, believe me. If Aristide has, as you say, paid that woman’s debts and saved her from having to pack up her trunks, it only proves that he is less fond of money than I thought. This will restore him to the ladies’ good graces…. The dear man, I leave him every liberty.”
She smiled, and pronounced the words “the dear man” in a voice full of friendly indifference. And suddenly, becoming very sad again, casting around her the despairing glance of women who do not know in what form of amusement to take refuge, she murmured:
“Oh, I should like to…. But no, I am not jealous, not at all jealous.”
She stopped, doubtfully:
“You see, I am bored,” she said at last, abruptly.
Then she sat silent, with her lips pressed together. The line of carriages still rolled along the lake with its even trot and a noise singularly resembling a distant waterfall. Now, on the left, there rose, between the water and the roadway, little bushes of evergreens with thin straight stems, forming curious little clusters of pillars. On the right, the copses and plantations had come to an end; the Bois opened out into broad lawns, into vast expanses of grass, with here and there a clump of tall trees; the greensward ran on, with gentle undulations, to the Porte de la Muette, whose low gates, that seemed like a piece of black lace stretched on the level of the ground, could be distinguished at a very great distance; and on the slopes, at the places where the undulations sank in, the grass seemed quite blue. Renée stared fixedly before her, as though this widening of the horizon, these gentle meadows, soaked in the evening air, had caused her to feel more keenly the void in her existence.
After a pause she repeated, querulously:
“Oh, I am
